Monoborracho

Last night I suprised Mrs. Mono with flowers and a card when she got home from teaching Kindergarten, a profession she resumed four years ago.

It has been five years, to the day, since she finished chemo and radiation for breast cancer.

I've told this before but am putting it here again after the recent publicity regarding mammmograms...

Five years and 7 months ago a routine mammogram detected a tumor that the radiologist diagnosed to be cancerous (think about that for a minute) and about the size of a pencil eraser. Again, think about a radiologist being so certain as to make a call of cancer. Our GP pounced on it, thankfully, with the comment that "most radiologists want a bone scan to diagnose a compound fracture, so if he says it's cancerous.....".

There was NO HISTORY of breast cancer in her family.

Four days later it was biopsied. Ten days later it was excised after a sentinel node procedure and the tumor was about the size of a peanut or pecan. (a 3x or 4x growth in 10 days) The diagnosis was Stage II invasive ductal carcinoma of an aggressive nature. Two weeks later the lymph nodes were excised and, hopefully, the terminus of the cancer was found. Five months of chemotherapy was followed by two months of radiation treatments.

Last night we went out for a 20 miler on the tandem. It was a warm TX night and a fun ride, followed by a fun evening at home with family and friends to celebrate.

Never take life for granted.

And, regardless of some government panel's recommendation, have your wives and daughters get a routine screening from age 30 onward.

At the risk of having this kicked to P&R......you can ration health care with either money, or time, and I fear that this week's recommendation of "screenings not necessary until age 50" is a harbinger of things to come. Such a policy would have cost me the life of my wife.